Chat Acronyms (ridiculously long post)

**Lt. Cmdr. DaTaMan** · March 12th, 2002, 10:44 AM

For those of you who have been in chat rooms with a lot of people spouting what appears to be random letters, this should clear things up a bit.

AAMOF - As A Matter Of Fact
AAR - At Any Rate
AFAIAA - As Far As I Am Aware
AFAIAC - As Far As I Am Concerned
AFAIC - As Far As I'm Concerned
AFAICT - As Far As I Can Tell
AFAIK - As Far As I Know
AFAIR - As Far As I Recall
AFK - Away From Keyboard
AIUI - As I Understand It
B4 - Before
BBL - Be Back Later
BBS - Be Back Soon, also see the computer acronyms page for the more familiar (to "oldtimers") Bulletin Board Service
BOFH - Bastard Operator From Hell - everybody's nightmare of a network admin.
BS - Bovine Excrement - you know, Cow Patties..... :-)
BTDT - Been There, Done That
BTDTBTT - Been There, Done That, Bought The Tape
BTDTGTTS - Been There, Done That, Got The Tee Shirt
BTDTGTTSAWIO - Been There, Done That, Got The Tee Shirt And Wore It Out
BTW - By The Way
C & C - Cats and Coffee - usually appears as "C & C Warning!" - refers to the fact that what you are about to read is so funny that you'll spill your coffee, at which point the cat that's in your lap will leap up, scratching you with its claws. So put the coffee down and get the cat off your lap before reading this.
CHURL - Childish & Uselessly Ranting Loser - used of troll-like individuals who really believe what they say and are angry at the world.
CU - See You
CUL - See You Later
DUL - Dial Up List - a list of dialups known to be used by spammers. Networks can use the list to automatically block all mail from those dialups. This is one of the services that MAPS offers.
DYOFDW - Do Your Own F* Dirty Work
DYJHIW - Don't You Just Hate It When
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions - a compendium of the most frequently asked questions, intended to lessen repetitive questions on a particular topic. Go to FAQS.ORG to find them.
FLA - Four Letter Acronym
flame(s) - refers to a newsgroup post which is insulting or inflammatory in nature. Usually used to either criticize someone's ignorance of a subject, to cover up for one's own lack of good argument or just to start a flamewar. E.g. a poster in rec.pets.cats posts an article describing how to barbeque cats in order to incite the regular participants of the group to respond in anger.
flamewar - a phenomenon in Usenet where posters begin "flaming" each other and the flames escalate until many people are involved.
FOAD - (F*) Off And Die - used in Usenet when someone has had enough of another person.
FUBAR - (F*) Up Beyond All Recognition
FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
FWIW - For What It's Worth
FYEO - For Your Eyes Only
FYI - For Your Information
GFY - Go (F*) Yourself
GoAT - Go Away Troll - a troll is someone who posts in a newsgroup with the intention of irritating the regulars - like someone who says "I love cats barbecued with sauce" in rec.pets.cats.misc (which has happened, BTW.)
HAND - Have A Nice Day
HTH - Hope This Helps (or Hope That Helped)
IANAL - I Am Not A Lawyer - precedes free legal advice on the Internet.
IBDIIN - I'll Be D*ed If I Know
IINM - If I'm Not Mistaken
IIRC - If I Recall Correctly
IKWYM - I Know What You Mean
IMHO - In My Humble Opinion
IMNSHO - In My Not So Humble Opinion
IMO - In My Opinion
IOW - In Other Words
ISP - Internet Service Provider
ISTM - It Seems To Me
ISTR - I Seem To Recall
ITEOTIAWKI - It's The End Of The Internet As We Know It
ITIKWYM - I Think I Know What You Mean
ITLA - Incremented Three Letter Acronym - believe it or not, at one time IBM ran out of TLAs. In order to move to four letter acronyms, they had to come up with a four letter acronym to replace TLA. But FLA wouldn't work, because that was only three letters. So ITLA was adopted as the "standard" to describe all four letter acronyms! True story!
ITYM - I Think You Mean (or I Thought You Meant)
IIUC - If I Understand Correctly (or If I Understood Correctly)
IYSWIM - If You See What I Mean
JAPH - Just Another Perl Hacker
JFTR - Just For The Record
JHD - Just Hit Delete - what the spammers would like you to do instead of complaining to their ISPs.
LART - Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool
LOL - Laughing Out Loud
LUSER - Local User, often used in a derogatory sense by admins and techs who have to deal with users that don't seem to want to understand how computers work.
MAPS - Mail Abuse Prevention System - see the MAPS web site for details.
NIH - Not Invented Here
NNTP - Network News Transport Protocol - hopefully you'll be using this one soon. :-)
NRN - No Reply Necessary ('course, it could mean Not Right Now, couldn't it?)
OB - an on-topic comment at the end of an otherwise blatantly off-topic post. (Eg. "ObHack: Cleaning my keyboard with an arc welder") OB actually stands for obligatory, so it's not really an acronym.
OP - Original Poster
ORBS - Open Relay Behaviour-modification System - a list of open relays that are used by spammers - networks can use this list to block mail from those sites - see the ORBS web site for details.
OT - Off Topic
OTOH - On The Other Hand
PISS - Passive Ignorance Silence Strike - giving an irritating newsgroup poster the group silent treatment.
PITA - Pain In The A**
PCTKB - Pot Calling The Kettle Black
PMFJI - Pardon Me For Jumping In
PLONK - Please Log Off, Net Kook - Richard Sexton claims to have originated the use of the term in newsgroups in 1988. He defined it as "*plonk* (n): the sound made by an ******* being dropped in your killfile."
POC - Point Of Contact
POS - NO...not that....it's Parent Over Shoulder. :-)
POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service - seriously!
POV - Point Of View
RBL - Realtime Blackhole List - a part of the MAPS project - used to block mail from networks that seem unable to prevent spam from emanating from their network.
RFC - Request For Comments - the standards for Internet operation - you can find them at the RFC Editor site. You can also find them at FAQS.ORG.
RFD - Request For Discussion - this is how new newsgroups are proposed. You can find a good explanation of the process with links to the proper locations here.
RFMS - Rapid Fire Mail Server - the spammers use these to send mail straight from their machine to yours. Anti-spammers call these Really Fast Mallet Summoner, because the spammers lose their accounts fast when they use these since it's easy to locate them.
ROTFL - Rolling On The Floor Laughing
ROTFLK&S - Rolling On The Floor Laughing, Kicking And Screaming
ROTFLMAO - Rolling On The Floor Laughing My A** Off
RSN - Real Soon Now
RTFAQ - Read The Frequently Asked Questions
RTFM - Read The (F*) Manual
RTM - Read The Manual
RTT - Reply To Troll (usually preceded by Please do not)
SCNR - Sorry, Could Not Resist
SITD - Still In The Dark
SNR - Signal to Noise Ratio - used on Usenet to refer to the ratio of useful posts to useless posts.
spam - unsolicited email, the use of the term comes from a Monty Python skit where a group began chanting "spam, spam, spam, spam", drowning out all conversation.
SPMD - Some People May Differ
STFU - Shut The (F*) Up
TAN - There are no - used as a disclaimer, as in TANW for There Are No Winners or TANCM for There Are No Cartel Members, etc.
TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
TEOTWAWKI - The End Of The World As We Know It (Y2K, right???)
TIA - Thanks In Advance
TIN - There Is No - used to preface a disclaimer.
TINC - There Is No Cabal - some think a cabal runs Usenet, but the cabal says they don't. :-)
TINLC - There Is No Lumber Cartel - see the Lumber Cartel web page for details. This one is funny!
TLA - Three Letter Acronym - really!
troll - not an acronym, but a very common term found on Usenet. It is used to describe the type of individual who deliberately posts imflammatory responses in a newsgroup in an attempt to start a "flamewar".
TPHB - The Pointy Haired Boss(es) (a reference to Scott Adams' Dilbert)
TPTB - The Powers That Be
TTBOMK - To The Best Of My Knowledge
TTFN - Ta Ta For Now
TTYL - Talk To You Later
UBE - Unsolicited Bulk Email (otherwise known as spam)
UCE - Unsolicited Commercial Email (otherwise known as spam)
UUOC - Useless Use Of Cat
WHBT - We Have Been Trolled
WIITWD - What It Is That We Do
WHL - We Have Lost
WRT - With Regard To
WTF - What The (F*)?
WTFDTM - What The (F*) Does That Mean?
WTH - What The Heck?
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get - pronounced wiz-ee-wig - refers to software that is supposed to display the final product in the same window you edit from - like Microsoft's FrontPage® web page editor.
Y2K - Year 2000 - you know what that means by now, don't you? TEOTWAWKI!!
YA - Yet Another
YAACA - Yet Another Attempted Character Assassination
YACC - Yet Another Compiler Compiler - the originator of YA.
YHBT - You Have Been Trolled
YHGMTPOTG - You Have Greatly Misunderstood The Purpose Of This Group
YHL - You Have Lost
YKYB...TLW - You Know You've Been (Doing Something) Too Long When
YMBJ - You Must Be Joking
YMHMYFAIOA - You May Have Mistaken Yourself For An Inventor Of Acronyms
YMML - You Made Me Laugh
YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary